The Early Modern English Period

Universität Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen
Hauptseminar: Aspects of the History of English
WS 2005/2006

The Early Modern English Period

by: Kathrin Brandt

Table of contents

1 Introduction 3

2 About the Early Modern English Period 4

3 The Development of the Early Modern English  4

3.1 First Development 4
3.2 Second Development  4

4 Linguistic Developments  5

4.1 Phonology  6
4.2 Morphology 6
4.3 Vocabulary 7

5 Groups of authors from the late 16th to the mid 18th century 7

5.1 The Metaphysical Poets  7
5.2 Jacobean Drama  8
5.3 Restoration Drama  10
5.4 Augustan Age 11

6 Shakespeare 12

7 Conclusion  14

8 References 15

1 Introduction

This work should give a short overview of the Early Modern English Period. It should give an idea how and when this period developed and which were the certain aspects of development.

This will be followed by some examples of changes and developments in linguistics. These examples will be from the areas of phonology, morphology and vocabulary. During this period there were several groups of authors which should be regarded. Which famous and still-known authors were parts of which group? What was characteristic or special for each group or the period of time when it occurred? This will be followed by a short chapter about William Shakespeare who was an important person at that time and in his works one can also see linguistic changes.

2 About the Early Modern English Period

The Early Modern English (“EME”) (Fennell 2001: 135) period followed after the Middle English period. The Early Modern English period extends from “1500-1800.” (Fennell 2001: 1) During this period there were a lot of changes in politics, economy, technology and society in Britain. (Fennell 2001: 135) The periods beginning cannot be found by certain military or political event. It may be caused by some developments, leading to standardisations in speech. (Hickey 2003) The structure of this standard “was very close to its structure in Present- Day English (PDE).” (Fennell 2001: 138) This is a reason why “texts written after that period are remarkably easy for a modern reader to comprehend.” (Fennell 2001: 138) Which developments played an important role will be regarded in the next chapter.

3 The Development of the Early Modern English

The developments were established by London’s linguistic hegemony. (Hickey 2003) The development happened in the following two steps.

3.1 First Development

There were some non-clerical scribes at the end of the 14th century. They made use of a “conventionalised orthography”, that “was accepted for official usage” (Hickey 2003) in the middle of the 15th century. In the emergence of a written standard the Chancery – an official department in London which prepared documents for the court – played an important role. Because of the different background of the people working there, a linguistic norm was needed. (Hickey 2003)

3.2 Second Development

The second development was influenced by the introduction of printing by William Caxton. He was living from 1422-1491 and was a merchant first. Later he was also a writer. (Hickey 2003) He “learned printing in Cologne and Bruges” (Alexander 2000: 68) and set up the first printing press in England in 1476. He established his base in Westminster and produced more than 90 editions off well-known and also lesser known authors. (Hickey 2003) “By 1500 over 35,000 books had been printed, though most were in Latin. However, by 1640 there were approximately 20,000 titles available in English.” (Fennell 2001: 156) This had an effect on “literacy and the uniformity of the language, most directly on the standardization of spelling, and perhaps indirectly on the differences among dialects.” (Fennell 2001: 156) With these printings a higher percentage of the population became literate. (Fennell 2001: 156) For his printings he imported paper from Low Countries. (Kastan 2002: 87)

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